Why We Forget
By
Douglas B. Potts
©1996 Douglas Potts. All rights reserved.
No portion of this document may be reproduced without the expressed written consent of the author.
Why Do We Forget?
We all do it; fail to meet someone at an agreed upon time, misplace our car keys, or send belated
birthday cards. We may stare blankly at a sheet of paper, hoping that the information, which we
“know” is stored in our brain, somehow forges its way to our consciousness, so that we can correctly
answer the question being posed to us. Or perhaps we answer the question, being positive that we
know the correct answer, only to find out that we were wrong in our recollection.
Cases of amnesia are reported where patients can remember nothing prior to a particular point in
time, yet they retain certain capabilities (musical, mathematical, etc.) Other patients, such as H.M.
seemingly cannot transfer information into their long-term memory. He can meet the same person
several times in a day, and yet not recall meeting them before. Yet he can learn things such as the
Tower of Hanoi, and not be able to recall learning it. These are all examples of forgetting. Yet it can
be argued that they are examples of different types of forgetting. This article explains the different
psychological ways we forget, and thus, why we forget. Neurological and physiological reasons are
not addressed. To better understand the following reasons for forgetting, a brief proposal as to the
structure of a memory system must be presented.
Proposed Models of Memory
Freud and William James were on of the first to defend the idea of two types of memory. Primary
memory is responsible for our subjective feeling of the present, and is linked to attention. Secondary
memory is inactive; a passive memory which is activated and brought to consciousness. Skills and
automatic processes were not considered part of memory.
Current models, supported by Alan Baddeley1, G. J. Hitch, and Robert Logie2 among others, explain
memory as being possibly four systems: An iconic (extremely short-term visual) memory, echoic
(extremely short-term aural) memory, working (short-term) memory, and long-term memory. Iconic
and echoic are sometimes referred to as sensory memory. Each of these can play a role in forgetting.
The role of iconic and echoic memory, however, is thought to be one which allows stimulus to be
perceived long enough so that it can be processed by working memory. As such, this paper addresses
memory failures in working memory and long-term memory.
1
Baddeley, A., Human Memory: Theory and Practice, 1990 Boston: Allyn and Bacon
2
Logie, R., Visuo-Spatial Working Memory, 1995, Hove(UK): Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
©1996 Douglas Potts. All rights reserved.
No portion of this document may be reproduced without the expressed written consent of the author.
Susan Loftus3 identifies four psychological reasons for forgetting: retrieval failure, interference,
motivated forgetting, and memory never stored. Alan Baddeley 4 in his 1990 book Human Memory:
Theory and practice further discusses these. The following discussions support these notions.
Retrieval Failure
For years it has been believed that everything we learn is stored forever. Sigmund Freud, in his
Psychology of Everyday Life5 states “…all impressions are preserved…” He believed that our
memories become perhaps “collapsed” or “crystallized” over time. Later, in his Introductory
Lectures on Psychoanalysis6, Freud further indicates that the information, over time, becomes
“inaccessible and latent, having become part of the unconscious.”
In the 1940s while operating on epileptic patients, Wilder Penfield discovered that when stimulating
the brain with weak electrical current near the hippocampus, patients recalled experiences from their
past lives. If such were the case, then storage failure would not be a reason for forgetting, but
retrieval failure would. Later analyses of the cases by Penfield himself showed that in no instance
were the experiences recalled actual experiences. They were simply comparable to dreams. The only
conclusion to be drawn from this is that Penfield’s method of brain stimulation does not retrieve
memories. There still exists the possibility that some method of brain stimulation can.
R. Brown and D. McNeill’s 1966 The tip of the Tongue Phenomenon7 paper studied retrieval failure.
“Tip of the Tongue (TOT) state involves a failure to recall a word of which one has knowledge. The
evidence of knowledge is either on eventually successful recall, or else an act of recognition that
occurs, without additional training, when recall has failed.” C. Brainerd et. al. 8 refer to this as
reminiscence. “Remembering something at a point in time (B) when at an earlier time (A) you could
not. In addition, you have not had the opportunity in the intervening time to relearn the material.” In
both cases, the information is available, yet perhaps not accessible. C. Brainerd et. al. discuss three
memory states of information.
“State U is a preliminary unstored state such that it cannot be retrieved
(i.e., recall probability is 0).
3
Loftus, S., Memory, surprising new insights into how we remember and why we forget, 1980, Reading MA:
Addison-Wesley
4
Baddeley, A., Human Memory: Theory and Practice, 1990 Boston: Allyn and Bacon
5
Freud, S., Psychology of Everyday Life, 1960, London: Hogarth Press
6
Freud, S., Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, 1967, New York: Liveright
7
Brown, R., & McNeill, D., (1966) The Tip of the Tongue Phenomenon, Journal of Verbal Learning and
Behavior, 5, 325-337
8
Brainerd, C., Reyna, V., Howe, M., & Kingma, J., (1990) The Development of Forgetting and
Reminiscence, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 55, (3-4)
©1996 Douglas Potts. All rights reserved.
No portion of this document may be reproduced without the expressed written consent of the author.
State S is an intermediate stored state such that it cannot always be retrieved
(i.e., recall probability is 0 < < 1)
State R is a terminal stored and retrievable state such that it can always be retrieved
(i.e., recall probability is 1).”
State U is concerned with memory never stored, and will be mentioned later. State S and R indicate
that information is stored. However, State S is of concern here, since it indicates that retrieval of
information in this state is unreliable. But why? This might best be explained by the idea of
memory traces. These are “pathways” to stored knowledge, or information in our long-term memory.
Two theories to explain why information is no longer retrievable are trace disintegration and trace
decay. The aforementioned indicates that the pathway simply vanishes over time. Yet experiments
show that relearning something is typically faster than learning it 9. This supports the idea of trace
decay, and that cues can help to recover these decaying traces. Retrieval relearning is the method by
which the means of accessing a memory trace is relearned. Hence relearning something is faster,
since the trace already exists.
Interference
A classic experiment investigating the role of interference in forgetting 10 was conducted by on only
two subjects. Both subjects were taught 10 nonsense syllables to a level of one perfect recitation.
After learning it, one slept while the other one performed routine or normal activities. As the chart
shows, the one who slept retained more information, longer.
100
Percent Remembered
80
60 Asleep
40 Awake
20
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Hours After Learning
9
Nelson, T., Fehling, M. & Moore-Glascock, J. (1979) The nature of semantic savings for items forgotten
from long-term memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 108, 225-250
10
Jenkins, J., & Dallenbach, K., (1924), Oblivescense During Sleep and Waking, American Journal of
Psychology, 35, 605-612
©1996 Douglas Potts. All rights reserved.
No portion of this document may be reproduced without the expressed written consent of the author.
Variables such a time of day and the activity performed were not controlled. When they were 11, the
results were not as dramatic, but they were still there. There exists the issue that it was not the lack
of interference that resulted in better performance, but perhaps the normal neuronal activity in the
brain during sleep (such as the release of growth factor) played the key role. Current theories in
interference assume that “forgetting reflects the disruption of the memory trace by other traces, with
the degree of interference depending on the similarity of the two mutually interfering memory
traces."12
Two types of interference are commonly discussed. Proactive interference is when new learning is
disrupted by old information. An example of this would be giving out your old telephone number
after you have moved, instead of your new one. Retroactive interference is when new learning
disrupts old information. Elizabeth Loftus studied this 13 in 1980.
Subjects were shown films of traffic accidents. Later, they were subtly given new and erroneous
information about what they saw. Later, subjects would say they remember actually seeing what was
mentioned in the erroneous information. D. Riccio et. al. 14 suggest that “Forgetting of attributes is
typically reflected in a loss of discriminability among perceptually distinguishable events; memory
representations appear to become broader and more homogeneous.” Thus, subjects may forget
attributes, and replace them with new (erroneous) ones supplied.
Berkian and Bowers15 showed that if the subjects are taken through the incident in the order it
occurred, they do not show the false reporting which happened with Loftus during her unstructured
questioning.
Prospective memory16 deals with remembering when something is to be done. Retrospective memory
deals with what should be done. The degree to which a prospective memory item is remembered is
dependent upon several things: the importance of the item, the amount of embarrassment one might
feel if it is forgotten, and the proximity of the time of the event to other events normally performed in
your daily routine.
11
Ekstrand, B., (1972) To sleep, perchance to dream. In C.P. Duncan, L. Sechrest, & A.W. Melton (Eds.),
Human memory: Festschrift in honor of Benton J. Underwood, pp. 59-82. New York: Appleton-Century-
Crofts
12
Baddeley, A. (1990), Human memory: theory and practice, Boston: Allyn and Bacon
13
Loftus, E., & Loftus, G., (1980), On the permanence of stored information in the human brain. American
Psychologist, 35, 409-420
14
Riccio, D., Rabinowitz, V., & Axelrod, S., (1994), Forgetting of Stimulus Attributes, American
Psychologist, 49, (11), 912-926
15
Berkian, D., & Bowers, J., (1983), Eyewitness testimony: Were we misled? Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 9, 139-145
16
Meacham, J., & Singer, J. (1977), Incentive effects in prospective memory. Journal of Psychology, 97, 191-
197
©1996 Douglas Potts. All rights reserved.
No portion of this document may be reproduced without the expressed written consent of the author.
Motivated Forgetting
As mentioned earlier in the discussion of prospective memory, we may forget things because we are
not motivated to remember them. We can, however, forget things because we are motivated to forget
them. People may block out terrible and traumatic events from their past, because of the pain
associated with them. Loftus17 recounts the case of Dr. R.J. who lost her memory with no evidence
of physical injury. As an amnesiac, she was quite happy. As her memory returned, she recalled the
traumatic year that ended in the death of her mother and the breakup of her marriage. Motivated
forgetting had given her peace of mind. Once she remembered, she was no longer happy. Loftus
quotes (quite aptly) Christina Rossetti in Remember. “Better by far you should forget and smile, than
that you should remember and be sad.”
Memory Never Stored
Consider the experiment conducted by Nickerson and Adams 18 where subjects were asked to draw the
head of a penny from memory. Only one subject could recall all eight “critical” features, presumably
because the subject was an active penny collector. So why did they do so poorly? What is it about a
penny that we need to know, in order to determine that it is a penny? The color and size are the two
most obvious attributes. We only remember attributes necessary for discrimination.
Summary
Almost all of the information that we can forget is due to one or more of four reasons:
1. Retrieval failure -- failure to retrieve information due to inaccessibility. This could be because of
decaying memory trace.
2. Interference -- Types of interference include Proactive Interference and Retroactive Interference
3. Motivated forgetting -- Forgetting something traumatic because of the pain and sorrow felt
4. Memory never stored -- simply discarding details because they are not needed for discrimination.
This may not make it easier to deal with the effects of forgetting something, but as you run through
the airport to meet someone whose flight arrived an hour ago, you can at least understand why you
forget the flight.
17
Loftus, S., Memory, surprising new insights into how we remember and why we forget, 1980, Reading MA:
Addison-Wesley
18
Nickerson, R. & Adams, M., (1979), Long-term Memory for a Common Object, Cognitive Psychology, 11,
287-307
©1996 Douglas Potts. All rights reserved.
No portion of this document may be reproduced without the expressed written consent of the author.
